Local company produces swabs to increase COVID 19 testing capacity

PALMER — Local Palmer engineering firm Triverus and machine parts designer Trijet are working to provide swabs as the coronavirus pandemic has swept across the globe.

Triverius and Trijet share a building on East Steel Loop in the industrial park in Palmer off of Inner Springer Loop and have been previously successful in producing flight deck cleaning machines for the United States Navy. Weeks ago, Triverus President and CEO Hans Vogel was contacted by staff of Gov. Mike Dunleavy with concerns about limited supplies of swabs in Alaska and how that may impact the state’s ability to broadly test for COVID-19.

“They had been sort of seeing projections and numbers and were definitely trying to plan ahead,” said Vogel.

On Friday, Dunleavy announced that the small Palmer shop will have produced 17,000 swabs by next week and ramp up to produce 2.5 million swabs by the end of June.

“Swabs have been one of our limiting factors and I appreciate businesses kind of stepping up,” said Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink during Friday’s press conference.

Vogel said that his small shop in Palmer possesses the digital and manufacturing capabilities to switch over to production of swabs, masks, and face shields. Triverus has been in operation since 2001 and produced the Mobile Cleaning Recovery and Recycle System (MCRRS) flight deck surfacing machines in 2016 that maintain waste and prevent unnecessary pollution.

“Our common concern is how are we going to scale up. There are some bigger numbers that are going to take some doing for sure but for the most part this is very scalable process,” said Vogel.

Vogel said that masks and shields are not yet ready for mass production, but that work on swab production has been ongoing for two weeks. Triverus’ swabs were validated by the state on Monday and began increasing production on Thursday. Face shields are currently still in design and M95 masks will be technically challenging, but Vogel said that an engineer from Triverus and designer from Trijet are working to help Alaska build up necessary personal protective equipment in the battle to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Zink said that 16 additional cases were reported on Friday, bringing the state total to 85 people who have tested positive for COVID-19. A total of 2,388 Alaskans have been tested for coronavirus. Testing capacity has become part of the often used vocabulary by Zink during press conferences and approximately 550 tests were completed on March 24 by commercial labs while the state lab completed 150 tests on March 22.

“That is 100 percent our goal is to be able to test as broadly as we can because I think that will help us understand the disease and the pattern and be able to keep up with it,” said Zink.

Triverius in Palmer has built a reputation for being able to compete with manufacturers in the Lower 48 and Vogel said that 80 percent of the parts produced by Trijet are sold Outside. Once the project is scaled, Vogel said that he may have to hire additional staff for packaging.

“The whole team is really passionate about making sure that our efforts are well thought through,” said Vogel.

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